A Great Idea at the Time
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11. Apollonius of Perga: On Conic Sections Omitted in the 1990 relaunch. “I regretted dropping the Conics,” Adler lamented.
12. Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic “The multiple superpartients and superpartients of other kinds are made to appear—out of the superpartients.”
13. Lucretius: On the Nature of Things I know how hard it is in Latin verse
To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks
14. Epictetus: The Discourses “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by their own notions regarding them.”
15. Marcus Aurelius: The Meditations “Highly teachable, but no real content,” said selection committee member Joseph Schwab.
16. Virgil: The Aeneid, The Eclogues, The Georgics “A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.”
17. Plutarch: The Lives On Alexander the Great: “He was much less addicted to wine than was generally believed.”
18. Tacitus: The Annals, The Histories “For when she consulted the astrologers about Nero, they replied that he would be emperor and kill his mother. ‘Let him kill her,’ she said, ‘provided he is emperor.’”
19. Ptolemy: The Almagest
20. Copernicus: On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres “We therefore assert that the center of the Earth, carrying the Moon’s path, passes in a great circuit among the other planets in an annual revolution round the Sun; that near the Sun is the center of the Universe.”
21. Kepler: Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, The Harmonies of the World As a young man, Mark Adler, Mortimer’s oldest son, read Kepler for fun: “I was curious. I wanted to learn about the music of the spheres.”
22. Plotinus: The Six Enneads “The sensitive principle is our scout; the Intellectual-Principle our King.”
23. St. Augustine: The Confessions, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine “But what were the causes for my strong dislike of Greek literature, which I studied from my boyhood?”
24. St. Thomas Aquinas, two volumes: Summa Theologica Omitted from the Harvard Classics.
25. Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy O people whose sharp fervor now perhaps
Redeems the negligence and dallying
You showed in lukewarmness for doing good
26. Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Cressida, The Canterbury Tales Criseyde was this lady name a-right;
As to my dome, in al Troyes citee
Nas noon so fair, for passing every wight
So aungellyk was hir natyf beautee
27. Machiavelli: The Prince “Princes should have anything blamable administered by others, favors by themselves.”
28. Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan “What a grim and dislikable writer! Yet how hard he is to shake off!”
—DAVID DENBY
29. Francois Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel “Rabelais’ Gargantua was never a great book, it was condemned by the Sorbonne when it was first written and the vulgar of the world have dragged it down its dirty path to this day.”
—LETTER FROM A DISAFFECTED GREAT BOOKS GROUP MEMBER TO HUTCHINS, 1950
30. Montaigne: Essays “Montaigne is not what the world needs”
—HUTCHINS
31. Shakespeare, two volumes: thirty-eight plays and The Sonnets “Shakespeare and Dante are the Western canon”
—HAROLD BLOOM
32. William Gilbert: On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies “The ingenious Fracastorio, a distinguished philosopher, in seeking the reason for the direction of the loadstone, feigns Hyperborean magnetick mountains attracting magnetical things of iron.”
33. Galileo: Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences “It is clear that Aristotle could not have made the experiment; yet he wishes to give us the impression of his having performed it.”
34. William Harvey: three works, including On the Circulation of the Blood “If a live snake be laid open, the heart will be seen pulsating quietly, distinctly, for more than an hour, moving like a worm.”
35. Cervantes: Don Quixote “Know, friend Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that the life of knights-errant is subject to a thousand dangers and reverses.”
36. Sir Francis Bacon: three works, including The New Atlantis “Know, therefore, that with them there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, nor anything of that kind. Nay, they wonder, with detestation, at you in Europe, which permit such things.”
37. Descartes: five works, including The Geometry “I have never met with a single critic of my opinions who did not appear to me either less rigorous or less equitable than myself.”
38. Milton: four works, including Paradise Lost Robert Hutchins once remarked that one of the two titles he would have chosen for an autobiography was “Natural Tears,” an allusion to Adam and Eve’s reaction to their expulsion from Paradise: “Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them.”
39. Pascal: nine works, including Les Pensées “Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.”
40. Newton: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Optics
41. Christian Huygens: Treatise on Light See my introduction
42. John Locke: four works, including An Essay Concerning Human Understanding “Notwithstanding these learned disputants, these all-knowing doctors, it was to the unscholastic statesman that the governments of the world owed their peace, defence, and liberties; and from the illiterate and contemned mechanic (a name of disgrace) that they received the improvements of useful arts.”
43. George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge “Apodictically I would declare that Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge is a classic.”
—ADLER
44. David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding “An old ass”—HUTCHINS
45. Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels “Several of this cursed Brood getting hold of the Branches behind, leaped up in the Tree, from whence they began to discharge their Excrements on my Head.”
46. Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy The only book that Hutchins insisted be included. It amused him. It was dropped from the 1990 edition, after his death.
47. Henry Fielding: Tom Jones Also dumped in 1990. “I thought we were wrong in dropping Fielding,” Adler lamented, again.
48. Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws “[Alexander] committed two very bad actions in setting Persepolis on fire and slaying Clitus; but he rendered them famous by his repentance. Hence it is that his crimes are forgotten, while his regard for virtue was recorded.”
49. Rousseau: three works, including The Social Contract “If Sparta and Rome perished, what State can hope to endure for ever?”
50. Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations “But though North America is not yet so rich as England, it is much more thriving, and advancing with much greater rapidity to the further acquisition of riches.”
51. Edward Gibbon, two volumes: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire “During the age of Christ . . . the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church.”
52. Immanuel Kant: seven works, including The Critique of Pure Reason “To know what questions may reasonably be asked is already a great and necessary proof of sagacity and insight.”
53. American State Papers: including The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution “When in the course of human events,” etc.
54. Alexander Hamilton, John Madison, and John Jay: The Federalist Papers“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous.”
55. John Stuart Mill: three works, including On Liberty But not the Autobiography, the book that prompted Adler to ditch journalism for Plato
56. James Boswell: The Life of Johnson My idea of a great book.
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57. Antoine Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry “In those days, without possessing facts, they framed systems; while we, who have collected facts, seem determined to reject even these, when they do not agree with our prejudices.”
58. Jean Baptiste Fourier: Theory of Heat Eliminated in 1990
59. Michael Faraday: Experimental Research in Electricity “If the wire—p’n’—be carried up from below, it will pass in the opposite direction between the magnetic poles; but then also the magnetic poles themselves are reversed.”
60. Hegel: The Philosophy of Right, The Philosophy of History “Spirit does not toss itself about in the external play of chance occurrences; on the contrary, it is that which determines history absolutely, and it stands firm against the chance occurrences which it dominates and exploits for its own purpose.”
61. Goethe: Faust Methinks, by most, ’twill be confess’d
That Death is never quite a welcome guest.
62. Melville: Moby-Dick Attempted blackballing (“if Whitman goes, Melville goes”) by Great Books progenitor John Erskine failed.
63. Darwin: The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man “Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors; they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure.”
64. Marx and Marx and Engels: Capital, The Communist Manifesto “The fate of humanity depends on the ability of Christians to demonstrate, by words and deeds, the fallacy of this ‘great book.’”
—THE GREAT BOOKS: A CHRISTIAN APPRAISAL
65. Tolstoy: War and Peace “‘But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been great men,’ says history.”
66. Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov “‘Stay, stay,’ laughed Ivan. ‘how hot you are! A fantasy you say, let it be so! Of course it’s a fantasy. But allow me to say: do you really think that the Roman Catholic movement of the last centuries is actually nothing but the lust of power, of filthy earthly gain?’”
67. William James: The Principles of Psychology “We are sure that fire will burn and water wet us, less sure that thunder will come after lightning, not at all sure whether a strange dog will bark at us or let us go by. In these ways experience moulds us every hour, and makes of our minds a mirror of the time- and space-connections between the things in the world.”
68. Sigmund Freud: eighteen works, including The Interpretation of Dreams, On Narcissism In his 1940 bestseller How to Read a Book, Adler consigned Freud to a subsidiary list of “good, but not great” writers. Among great writers, he included Henry Thomas Buckle and Charles Lyell.
ADDED IN 1990:69. John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion “We have a frenzied desire, an infinite eagerness, to pursue wealth and honour, intrigue for power, accumulate riches, and collect all those frivolities which seem conducive to luxury and splendor.”
70.Erasmus: The Praise of Folly “The Praise of Folly is famous by its title but it seems to me a pretty dead work.”—JOHN ERSKINE
71.Molière: seven plays“Molière will go out only over my bruised body,” Mark Van Doren said during the first round of selections. “It’s trash, professor, and nothing else.”
—HUTCHINS TO ADLER RE: MOLIÈRE
72.Jean Racine: two playsAndromache: “Can I forget Hector unburied, dragged in dishonor round our walls? Can I forget his father thrown down at my feet, covering the altar with blood?”
73.Voltaire: Candide “The single most influential figure of the eighteenth century,” according to Hutchins, who couldn’t jawbone the Frenchman into Round One.
74.Diderot: Rameau’s Nephew “If I understood history, I’d show you that evil has always come here below from some man of genius.”
75.Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling “When the child has grown and is to be weaned, the mother virginally covers her breast, so the child no more has a mother. Lucky the child that lost its mother in no other way!”
76.Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil “A thing explained is a thing we have no further concern with.—What did that god mean who counselled: ‘know thyself !’?Does that perhaps mean: ‘Have no further concern with thyself! become objective!’”
77.Toqueville: Democracy in America “So many lucky men, restless in the midst of abundance.”
78.Balzac: Cousin Bette “‘If you save my life,’ she asked, ‘shall I be as good-looking as ever? ‘Possibly,’ said the physician, slowly.
‘I know your “possibly,” said Valerie. ‘I shall look like a woman who has fallen into the fire! No! Leave me to the Church. I can please no one now but God.’”
79.Jane Austen: Emma “It darted through her with the speed of an arrow that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!”
80.George Eliot: Middlemarch “We have come a long way, baby,” read the promotional teaser, “and thus we have Jane and George, as well as Willa Cather and Virginia Woolf in the 20th century.”
81.Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit Finally
82.Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn Finally
83.Henrik Ibsen: four plays
84.In one volume: essays by William James (“Pragmatism); Henri Bergson (“An Introduction to Metaphysics”); John Dewey (“Experience and Education”); Alfred North Whitehead (“Science and the Modern World”); Bertrand Russell (“The Problems of Philosophy”); Martin Heidegger (“What Is Metaphysics?”); Ludwig Wittgenstein (“Philosophical Investigations”); Karl Barth (“The Word of God and The Word of Man”)
85.In one volume: essays by Henri Poincare (“Science and Hypothesis”); Max Planck (“Scientific Autobiography”); Whitehead (“An Introduction to Mathematics”); Albert Einstein (“Relativity”); Arthur Eddington (“The Expanding Universe”); Niels Bohr (“Selections”); G. H. Hardy (“A Mathematician’s Apology”); Werner Heisenberg (“Physics and Philosophy”); Erwin Schrodinger (“What Is Life?”); Theodosius Dobzhansky (“Genetics and the Origin of Species”); C. H. Waddington (“The Nature of Life”)
86.In one volume: Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class); R. H. Tawney (The Acquisitive Society); J. M. Keynes (The General Theory)
87.In one volume: James Frazer (Golden Bough, selections); Max Weber (Essays in Sociology, selections); Johan Huizinga (The Waning of the Middle Ages); Claude Levi-Strauss (Structural Anthropology, selections)
88.In one volume: Henry James (The Beast in the Jungle); G. B. Shaw (Saint Joan); Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness); Anton Chekhov (Uncle Vanya); Luigi Pirandello (Six Characters in Search of an Author); Marcel Proust (Swann in Love); Willa Cather (A Lost Lady); Thomas Mann (A Death in Venice); James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist)
89.In one volume: Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse); Franz Kafka (Metamorphosis); D. H. Lawrence (The Prussian Officer); T. S. Eliot (The Waste Land); Eugene O’Neill (Mourning Becomes Electra); F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby); William Faulkner (A Rose for Emily); Bertolt Brecht (Mother Courage); Ernest Hemingway (The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber); George Orwell (Animal Farm); Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)
In the final six volumes Adler & Co. did precisely what they had earlier reviled the Harvard Classics for doing—that is, printing short works and excerpts by famous writers and thinkers.
NOTES ON SOURCES
There have been three thoroughly researched dissertations written on the Great Books movement, all of which were very valuable to me. They are: Hugh Moorhead’s 1964 thesis, “The Great Books Movement”; Amy Apfel Kass’s “Radical Conservatives for Liberal Education,” completed in 1973; and Tim Lacy’s 2006 dissertation, “Making a Democratic Culture: The Great Books Idea, Mortimer J. Adler, and Twentieth-Century America.”
All three scholars mined the key archives at the University of Chicago and elsewhere before I did, and following their work eased my own research burden considerably. In many cases, all four of us perused the same documents and excerpted exactly the same comments and quotations. They showed me the way.
Although I ci
te some smaller collections below, the main archives for any study of the Great Books are to be found in the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. The Robert Hutchins, William Benton, and Mortimer Adler papers are open and available to the public.
ONE: THE HEADWATERS
I was helped in this section by W. B. Carnochan’s useful and amusing overview, “Where Did Great Books Come From, Anyway?” published in the Stanford Humanities Review in 1998. Equally valuable was Adam Kirsch’s Harvard magazine article on the “five-foot shelf,” “Eliot’s Elect: The Harvard Classics, 1910,” published in 2001.
For information on Charles Eliot, and the Harvard and Yale curricula before and after his reforms, I used Samuel Eliot Morrison’s 1936 classic, Three Centuries of Harvard, and Volume 1 of Yale’s rival text, Yale: College and University, by George Pierson, published in 1952. I also consulted John Bethell’s lively and readable illustrated history, Harvard Observed, from 1998.